Why BRICS is a counterweight to Group of 7 rich nations

THE recently concluded BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia was significant for several reasons. For one, it saw the resumption of formal bilateral talks between India and China, signalling a thaw in frosty relations between the world's two most populous countries representing 2.8 billion people.

- YESHI SELI

Significantly, the meet also accepted 13 new countries as 'partners', taking the influence and size of the grouping to greater levels. Over the next two decades, the size of the bloc is slated to exceed the economies of the group of seven (G7) Western countries led by the US.

The 13 nations that have become partners of the BRICS are Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkiye, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. These partner nations will eventually become full members of BRICS.

From BRICS to BRICS

Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill coined the term BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in a 2001 research paper titled 'Build Better Global Economic BRICS to project how these four dynamic nations, if their growth pace was maintained, would dominate the global economy by 2050.

O'Neill projected that the 'weight of the BRICS' would grow exponentially over the coming decade and the quartet would influence the global economy to such an extent that the G7 would be forced to accommodate these countries.

The moniker, BRICS, instantly took off and created a lot of interest among economists and strategic affairs experts. Goldman Sachs released a second paper titled 'Dreaming with BRICS: The Path to 2050' in 2003 positing that the BRICS could overtake the largest Western economies by 2039. Russian President Vladimir Putin was among the first embrace the idea of BRICS.

He took proactive steps to bring the others on board to form a bloc which would grow to become a counterweight to the Western-dominated global economy.

Russia hosted the first official BRIC summit in 2009. South Africa joined a year later on an invitation from China, forming a formidable five-country grouping officially called BRICS (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa).